HP Omen 45L (2026) Gaming PC Review

Go massive or go dwelling. That seems like all the mantra of the HP Omen Max 45L’s design. It has an unlimited RTX 5090 that’s in some way even bigger on this configuration with its anti-sag bracket. It has boat a great deal of reminiscence, loads of storage, and an enormous case that utterly silos off the CPU cooling in a trend paying homage to these outdated Vapochill part change items.

All of that comes at an unlimited price, although. This configuration is north of $6,000, and bizarrely it’s with a 12-core 9900X3D CPU, fairly than the flagship 9950X3D or more-typical gaming kingpin, the 9800X3D.

Still, it appears good, performs good, and provides you loads of scope for growth. If you desire a PC that may play something and do it comparatively cool and quietly, this will not be a foul purchase in 2026 the place absolutely anything goes to price you a large number.

Design and Features

The HP Omen Max 45L is effectively named. This system is massive and daring, with a domineering presence on or beneath your desk. Despite the LED lighting and glasswork being tastefully dealt with within the default configuration – HP reliably instructed us unicorn vomit was readily available if you’d like it – this method makes a press release. Its segregated cooling unit on the highest appears completely different and it definitely stands other than extra conventional case types, and more and more frequent wraparound glass panelling of extra showy designs.

However, that is no mere assertion piece. HP has thought in regards to the practicalities of such a system, and although it appears the half, it’s additionally versatile and comparatively straightforward to become familiar with. The toolless facet panels are a beautiful contact, making them tremendous straightforward to take away with no need to hunt for a screwdriver. Or a minimum of, they need to be. I discovered one of many toolless mechanisms caught on my first try to open the facet and a number of other extra after that. It finally loosened up and we had been all good, however I’m wondering if a knock in transit made it much less compliant than it needs to be.

The motherboard is a bespoke HP 8E55 mannequin with an AMD x870 chipset and a effectively rounded choice of USB inputs, SATA ports, and fan headers for if you wish to broaden the already spectacular inventory cooling configuration. There’s only a single PCIe x16 port and one PCIe x4 slot, which is probably going lots for many players. However, for those who do need to add one thing to that x4 slot you might need to think about a riser cable or a smaller graphics card. With the outsized RTX 5090 in place that port is all however coated and there’s no likelihood of getting something plugged in.

Similarly, the secondary M.2 SSD is situated straight beneath the graphics card, making upkeep on that drive not possible with out eradicating the GPU totally. It’s not an unlimited gripe, however for those who’re going to have a bespoke motherboard, extra accessible storage can be good.

Rear I/O connectors provide an affordable choice of USB-A, USB-C, and audio connectors, with a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, too. I’ve had loads of different boards with extra expansive USB port choices, although. I can think about a state of affairs the place I saturate the USB ports on this board and have to shuffle peripherals round. Would a number of extra USB 2.0 a minimum of have been an excessive amount of to ask? The backplate has sufficient unfavourable house that there’s room for extra.

Cable administration within reason effectively dealt with, however not essentially to the identical customary as you would possibly anticipate from such an costly system. Although nearly all of them are corralled behind the motherboard tray, there’s nonetheless a large spaghetti mess in entrance of it. None of them are labelled, and a few will not be even tightly pinned to cable tidies on the entrance. There’s a whole lot of single-use cable ties employed to tie them down too, that means if you wish to actually reroute something, you’re going to have to interrupt out the scissors.

Like the motherboard, the PSU is bespoke too, some HP-branded 1,200W Gold effectivity ATX 3.1 unit. Both are made to straightforward ATX codecs, although, so you may swap them out for one more branded various sooner or later if you want.

I just like the cooling configuration with this method. Isolating the CPU radiator within the roof with its personal consumption and exhaust provides the system a novel look and ensures the CPU’s cooling is totally distinct from the whole lot else in your system. It might obtain the identical impact by simply front-mounting the radiator, however then that hotter air would impression the temperatures of the GPU a bit of. This all equates to only some additional frames per second and barely quieter followers, however for a system of this measurement and value, I’ll take innovation on cooling for basic high quality of life in day after day use.

Software

This system doesn’t include an excessive amount of bloatware, though there may be the anticipated assortment of pre-installed apps and HP instruments that you simply virtually definitely gained’t use. HP Smart printing companies, HP diagnostics, and HP Support Assistant are all there, although the one pre-installed HP app you would possibly really use is the Omen Gaming Hub. This helps you to monitor efficiency and temperatures, and provides you full customization over the AIO CPU cooler’s LCD panel, and RGB lighting on every of the system’s followers.

There’s additionally the Omen AI helper which might optimize part and in-game settings for optimum efficiency. Realistically, although, for those who’re shopping for this configuration there shouldn’t be a sport you may’t play at completely maxed out settings. Don’t sniff at DLSS and Frame Generation, although, as outdoors of ultra-competitive esports video games these can actually assist your body charge clean out in even demanding, ray-traced video games.

Performance

Unsurprisingly for such a robust system, the HP Omen Max 45L had no bother with any of the video games and benchmarks I threw at it. Its 3DMark scores make nearly each gaming desktop we’ve reviewed in current months spit out their digital espresso – ray tracing, 4K decision, none of it’s bother for the ultra-powerful mixture of an RTX 5090 and Ryzen 9900X3D.

Cyberpunk 2077 nonetheless proves a problem when you interact RT Overdrive mode, however with DLSS and body technology enabled I virtually reached 120 fps which feels extremely clean and about as realistic-looking as you will get, even over 5 years on from the unique sport’s launch. Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition, nonetheless a problem all these years later however a straightforward 100+ fps for a system like this.

HP Omen Max 45L Review Configuration Specs

RAM

Kingston Fury 64GB DDR5-6000 (2 x 32GB)

GPU

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 32GB

Storage

2 x 2TB Samsung MZVL82T0HBL1-00BH1 PCIe 4.0 SSD

Front ports

2 x USB-A 5 Gbps, 1 x USB-C 10 Gbps, twin 3.5mm headphone jacks

Rear ports

4 x USB-A 2.0, 2 x USB-A 5 Gbps, 1 x USB-C 10 Gbps, 1 x Thunderbolt 4, 1 x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, audio jacks.

Forza Horizon 5 appears buttery clean with over 200 FPS even with out body technology, and with it I virtually broke 300. You’d want a severely quick gaming monitor to actually benefit from that, however when you’ve got it, this PC will ship it.

Total War: Warhammer III was equally straightforward for this method, with a rock-solid 150+ fps common. Even Black Myth Wukong, a notoriously demanding sport, was easy to interrupt 100 fps. With body technology enabled, too, we had been in a position to take it over 160 fps – nice for these with quicker screens who can actually take advantage of these greater body charges.

Call of Duty 7 isn’t the perfect trying gaming on this planet, but it surely’s demanding sufficient. Of course this method breezed by way of it, even at 4K with over 100 fps and near 150 fps with body gen enabled (although for a aggressive sport you’d probably go away that off to scale back enter lag.)

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows proved essentially the most demanding of the video games examined, however even then I managed over 80 FPS with this method at 4K with the whole lot maxed out. Frame technology nudged that into the 140s, making for a gorgeously clean murdering expertise.

Outside of gaming, the HP Omen Max 45L confirmed its productiveness potential with a robust displaying in Procyon’s Office benchmark, managing a rating of 8,415. It’s not going to compete with the 16+ core productiveness chips from AMD or Intel, however if you wish to stream when you sport, or edit movies once you aren’t taking part in, this PC is greater than as much as the duty.

The HP Omen Max 45L is an impressively quiet system. The mixture of sturdy system cooling and the cryo-chamber for the CPU radiator meant that even in some demanding video games like Cyberpunk noise ranges stayed very cheap. In Assassin’s Creed: Shadows nonetheless, I did discover myself reaching for the headphones, so this isn’t some silent gaming PC. Just one which’s quieter than most at this sort of measurement and stage of {hardware}.